By Carol Miller The leadership of the New Mexico Legislature has finally caught itself in its web of changes to the election code, each designed to take choices away from the voters of the state. Every year at the Legislature, ballot access advocates have watched these changes with horror, observing New Mexico’s slide into the group of states with the worst ballot access and fewest voter choices. Now that Speaker Ben Lujan finds his son caught in this web, we might get some change, but let’s go for real change that increases democracy. Last year, the 2007 Legislature passed House Bill 1156, which states among its purposes, right at the top of the bill, “eliminating provisions allowing candidates who fail to receive preprimary convention designation to become a candidate.” The section lawmakers repealed used to allow a candidate to get on the ballot by going directly to voters, getting their signatures and submitting nominating petitions to the secretary of state. If candidates asked at the preprimary convention for a ballot spot but did not receive the votes of 20 percent of delegates, they could go back to the voters, collect additional signatures and submit the additional nominating petitions to the secretary of state. Continue Reading